Tapi tahun ni rasa nak revamp my bedroom. My room doesn't have a katil right now because I used to have queen sized four poster bed but it was too big for my room. So we transferred it to my mum's room and now I'm only left with a mattress. Been trying to search for a nice single or super single bed but its quite hard to find a reasonably priced bed that is nice. Yang cantik semua mahal sangat, yang murah semua tak lawa.

So sambil-sambil tu kite cari barang yang kecik-kecik so that I don't end spending to much but it'll still update the look of my room. So I went to Ikea to find new knobs for my wardrobe and drawers...

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I should really write more about baking in my blog. So here it goes. These are some random baking and cake decorating tips that I would like to share. Some of them I learnt online, some from baking and cake decorating classes and some through personal experiences..Do try them whenever you are baking and let me know if it works well for you! Also if you have any tips or tricks you wanna share, please feel free to post them in the comments. Would love to know your tricks too!

10 Random Baking/Cake Deco Tips:

1. Separate egg yolks and whites and beat them separately before adding them to your mixture. Add in the yolks first with the butter and sugar mixture. Fold in the whites with the batter right before pouring them into you baking pan. It helps to make your cake fluffier (is there such a word?).

The Science: Yolks have fat in them while the whites don't. The whites produces air bubbles when you whip them up and act as a rising/leavening agent while the egg yolks provides moisture. Whipping the both of them together will result in the fats getting in between the air bubbles and therefore the batter will not rise as well.

2. Make sure your eggs are at room temperature otherwise they wont combine correctly with the butter and sugar.

3. To ensure that your cake rises more evenly (level), after pouring your batter into the cake pan, make a well in the middle of the batter or twirl the cake pan to the sides to make the batter cling and is therefore higher on the sides and lower in the middle.

4. When baking a cake, I prefer to not grease the sides of the cake pan. I only line the bottom with a wax or parchment paper. I find that it rises more evenly especially on the sides. Just make sure that you run a knife through to make sure that it doesn't stick before turning out the cake.

5. You can also leave a cake pan on a towel that you've poured with hot water for about 5 minutes before you turn the cake out to ensure that it doesn't stick to the pan.

6. Fill the cake batter no more than 1/2 or 2/3 of the cake pan to allow it to bake and rise evenly.

7. Unless you purposely intend for your cakes to stick to the cake board or cake stand or plate, do not turn it out on a solid flat surface. Instead, turn your cake out on a wire rack. Leave it to cool first for a few minutes before you do this.

8. To get a nice clean finish on your cake frosting/icing, firstly frost a thin layer of buttercream and leave it in the fridge before coating the cake with a second, thicker layer. This is called "crumb coating" the cake.

I just started trying to be modest. In other words, I just started wearing the hijab =). Kinda funny that in the previous post I was just writing about my new haircut. Anyways, surprisingly wearing the hijab makes you even feel modest inside. I mean, me at least. I used to wear it in school coz it was just compulsory in my school to wear a hijab. But once school ended, I chose not to. It was for the simple reason that I felt insecure. And I still remember telling myself that I'll wear it again once I gained more confidence. And that was when I was 18. Now I'm 26. My self confidence has definitely had a tremendous increase since then. This past year I've been thinking of wearing it again. Close friends know my intention as once in a while, I would tell them. I started buying scarves and wearing more covered clothing although not completely committing to it. Once in a while when I'm about to go out, I try on a scarf and look at myself in the mirror. But everytime, I just ended up taking it off coz I felt like it just didn't look right.

Personally for me, it's been quite a tough time this past month. And naturally, that just makes one think about god/Allah more and asking for his guidance. Maybe that's why he suddenly moved me to try on the hijab again, only this time for some magical reason, it looked just right. Maybe to someone else's eyes it looked ordinary. But who cares. It looked super nice to me! And so I decided to leave it on that day. I went out that day with my new, hot pink, jersey hijab that I bought from Karyanina (acecee promo skett)and headed over to Stellar at SS15, feeling proud and contented. Seriously, it felt like such a relief. I didn't think that it was gonna make me feel that way. But it was a good feeling. And I didn't even feel insecure or anything. I just felt really pretty =). I decided to keep my new image and I feel happy.

The best thing is that it changes your life in the best way. You don't just wear it to look modest, but to try and be modest in every other way possible in your life. Jaga tutur kata, pergaulan dengan kawan-kawan, pakaian of course lah, and most importantly solat. I'm not saying it gets perfected instantly. Memang tak aa. Orang luarbiasa je boleh buat instantly. But you are more aware of it and you genuinely try your best and its like you can now focus better on other things in life besides obsessing on your looks. Tak tau nak explain mcm mana lagi tapi memang best la.

Alhamdullillah, thank you Allah for all that you have given me. I feel proud of myself. Thank you friends and family who have truly been supportive. and to that special someone, thank you for being on the same page with me during this transition. And for telling me I look pretty more times than you did masa sebelum bertudung =D. (kalau siapa-siapa rasa nak muntah skarang, muntah la. ade aku kesah? haha)

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Happy new year to all of you! Hope your 2012 have been great so far. How did you spend the first day of your new year? I went back to my Kampong with my family. It was a great way to spend﻿ the first day of the new year. Some great things happened during this trip..

Brought my Uwan back to her home. With an entourage. heh. She was so happy (FYI, my uwan lives with my aunt because she's too old to live alone). But we made a short detour to Ulu Bendul for a picnic lunch, and she wasn't too happy about the delay..

Ada sikit bebel, sikit masam, but in the end she warmed up and joined us dipping our feet in the river.

As for my maklong, it's her first trip back to Kuala Pilah and her first picnic in a really long time so she's happy about it. And you'll be surprise to know that she has never 'mandi sungai' before in her life. Ever. So she absolutely couldn't resist dipping her feet into the cold water.

This is my cousin, Abbas. It's quite obvious that this is his first time 'mandi sungai' too. I mean like, siapa tengok jam dalam air bro.. chillex aa. ahihi..

On the way back before reaching uwan's house, we'll always drop by the supermarket in Kuala Pilah town, Gedung Harian, and get this wonderful Apollo wafer chocolate and of course other supplies too. MMmm yum.

Some kids/teenagers nowadays don't really enjoy balik kampong because they say it's boring and there's nothing to do. But actually there's a lot of things you can do.

Friday, December 30, 2011

It was my dad's birthday a few weeks back and I decided to bake something for him. Something different and yummy. Something that I know my dad will love. So I gave my usual vanilla cupcake recipe a bit of a twist. I added some white chocolate pieces to the recipe and for the topping I added some shaved hawaiian coconut which I still had some left from before and some walnuts which I know my dad loves (he likes any kind of nuts). It turned out great and super yummy! I still feel like having some! I can taste the sweetness of the coconut and white chocolate pieces and the crunchy walnuts as Im writing this. GOSHHHHHH....

Preheat oven to 175C. Prepare baking cups in muffin pans. Combine all ingredients for the cupcakes in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy, smooth and pale, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in white chocolate pieces.Spoon batter into cups until about half to quarter full.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Prepare frosting by beatng the butter, shortening, Icing sugar, vanilla, and milk until smooth. Spread over cupcakes and sprinkle coconut and walnuts on top. And Voila! its ready to be eaten!

Even my cat Blue want's it!

﻿

The recipe is super simple. You just basically toss everything in. Try it!﻿﻿

About Me

I'm a self-taught baker who has a cake blog. I love fried potatoes, cats and long walks on the beach.Ok the last one is a lie. I inspire to open my own bakery soon and hopefully that doesn't take too long. Hi I'm Azyan. Nice to meet you. =)